Peter I of Russia

“ The personal genius and initiative of Peter the Great have contributed more to the development of Russia’s resources, and he has done more to raise her to her present position in Europe than all other causes combined. It is sad for the philanthropist and historian to admit that these great qualities were obscured by vices and habits that were, perhaps, the tribute which even the greatest of mortals has to pay to his age and to his nation. ”

“ POLITICALLY and socially, Peter's reforms, taken in conjunction with the success of his policy of conquest, signified the strengthening of absolutism. When at length, in the year 1721, Peter assumed the Byzantine title of Imperator, the fullness of power of his reformed absolutism was thereby well characterised. The Moscow tsars, such rulers as John the Terrible, had been absolute or quasi-absolute, but the absolutism of Peter was qualitatively higher. Peter was recognised by Europe; he co-ordinated Russia with the European powers; he made Russia one of the great powers of Europe. ”

“ The discontent of the lower orders broke out in loud complaints during Peter’s temporary absence. No measures short of the most despotic could have compelled the inhabitants of Moscow to migrate to the bleak and dismal islands of the Neva, and Peter was not slow to carry such measures into effect.
If the people could have looked beyond the convenience of the moment into the future prospects of the empire, they must at once have perceived the wisdom of the change. The paramount object of Peter’s policy was the internal improvement of Russia. ”

“ Peter the Great, grandson of the first emperor of the Romanof line, was a man of such extraordinary power of body and mind, such a remarkable combination of common sense, mental activity, advanced ideas, and determination to lift Russia to a high place among the nations, with cruelty, grossness, and infirmities of vice and passion, that his reign of forty-three years fills as large a place in Russian history as do the annals of all the preceding centuries, and the progress of Russia during this short period was greater than in any other epoch of three or four times its length. ”

“ And to my boundless surprise I recognised this frantic rider for the Tsar Peter himself—for him who is at this day known as Piotr Veleeki, Peter the Great; whose slightest word or frown is feared or hailed by millions of subjects; the conqueror of Charles of Sweden; a second Alexander the Great; the maker of a new Russia; the greatest Russian that God’s sun ever shone upon. ”

“ I would have given thee half of my dominion to have learned of thee how to govern the other half." He planted throughout his vast empire the seeds of Western civilization, and by his giant strength lifted the great nation which destiny had placed in his hands out of Asiatic barbarism into the society of the European peoples.
The influence of Peter's life and work upon the government of Russia was very different from what he intended. It is true that his aggressive, arbitrary rule strengthened temporarily autocratic government in Russia. ”

“ Russia gives the most memorable instance in human annals, of the powers which lie within the mind of individual man. Peter the Great was not the restorer, or the reformer of Russia; he was its moral creator. ”

“ It is comprehensible that by such means Peter could inoculate neither civil courage, nor the feeling of duty, nor that love for one’s neighbour which is above all material or intellectual forces and more powerful than knowledge itself; in a word, although he established a multitude of institutions and created a new political organisation for Russia, yet Peter was not able to create a living, new Russia. ”

“ Narva was now relieved, the shattered remains of the Russian army did not shew themselves; the whole country as far as Pleskow lay open; the czar seemed bereft of all resource for carrying on the war; and the king of Sweden, victor in less than twelve months over the monarchs of Denmark, Poland, [Pg 123] and Russia, was looked upon as the first prince in Europe, at an age when other princes hardly presume to aspire at reputation. But the unshaken constancy that made a part of Peter's character, prevented him from being discouraged in any of his projects. ”

“ Nobody doubts or questions that the rise of Russia to its present proud and threatening position is chiefly owing to the genius and policy of Peter the Great. Peter was a descendant of a patriarch of the Greek Church in Russia, whose name was Romanoff, and who was his great-grandfather. His grandfather married a near relative of the Czar, and succeeded him by election. His father, Alexis, was an able man, and made war on the Turks. ”

“ Russia is indebted solely to czar Peter for its great influence in the affairs of Europe; being of no consideration in any other reign, since it embraced Christianity. Before this period, the Russians made the same figure on the Black Sea, that the Normans did afterwards on the coasts of the ocean. In the reign of the emperor Heraclius, they fitted out an armament of forty thousand small barks; appeared before Constantinople, which they besieged, and imposed a tribute on the Greek emperors ”

“ The revolutions and wars which Russia had afterwards to encounter against the Turks, and in which she proved victorious, the evacuating the three provinces in Persia, which cost Russia more to keep than they were worth, are events which do not concern Peter the Great, as they did not happen till several years after his death; it may suffice to observe, that he finished his military career by adding three provinces to his empire on the part next to Persia, after having just before added the same number on that side next to Sweden. ”

“ Peter the Great was the typical Russian Tsar, though built on the most majestic and colossal scale. He forced his reforms upon an indifferent or unwilling people. While many Russians are, from one point of view, enlightened and others are crudely educated and correspondingly radical, the fact remains that to any proposed change the masses block the way ; nor is it strange that the reforms in other lands extorted from the rulers by the people are in Russia, if they exist at all, forced upon the ruled by the ruler. ”

“ When Peter the Great, a boy of seventeen, became the absolute ruler of Russia, his subjects were little better than savages, and in himself, even, the passions and propensities of barbarism were so strong that they were frequently exhibited during his whole career. But he determined to transform himself and the Russians into civilized people. He instituted reforms with great energy, and at the age of twenty-six started on a visit to the other countries of Europe for the purpose of learning about their arts and institutions. ”

“ The impetus he gave Russia is that in which she still continues. Everywhere in the public and social life of this people is to be noticed the impulse he gave. It is an accomplished fact that no human power can annul; so all inquiry to find out if this impetus was necessary and favourable to Russia would be inopportune and sterile. There is, however, no doubt that in Peter’s haste in his work of reform he did not sufficiently consider national things both great and good ”

“ Peter's reforms extended through his whole reign. He made his people give up their cherished oriental beards and long flowing garments. He forced the women of the better class, who had been kept in a sort of oriental harem, to come out and meet the men in social assemblies, such as were common in the West. He invited foreigners to settle in Russia, and insured them protection, privileges, and the free exercise of their religion. He sent young Russians abroad to study. He reorganized the government officials on the model of a western kingdom, and made over his army in the same way. ”

“ Peter was at least choosing better models than his predecessors. If it was an apparent mistake to build a modern, centralized state in the eighteenth century upon a social organization belonging to the eleventh century, it may be that in so doing, an inspired despot builded wiser than he knew. May it not be that the final regeneration of that land is to come some day, from the leaven of native instincts in her peasantry, which have never been invaded by foreign influences and which have survived all the vicissitudes of a thousand years in Russia? ”

“ The beautiful arts of other countries must be introduced and made to flourish; all that was wonderful, fair, or great must find a home in Russia.
Such were the dreams of Peter; his breed, his tradition, his character were against these dreams.
Half an Asiatic, his type was largely Eastern, his outlook wholly so; he was nearer Timour Beg than Louis XIV, despite his admiration of this latter ideal of kingship.
He had admired Europe and copied Europe and envied Europe—he had little in common with Europe. ”

“ He continued the works he had begun all over his empire, to the further extremity of Kamtshatka, and for the better direction of them, established an academy of sciences at Petersburg. The arts began now to flourish on every side: manufactures were encouraged, the navy was augmented, the army well provided, and the laws properly enforced. He now enjoyed his glory in full repose; but was desirous of sharing it in a new manner with her who, according to his own declaration, by remedying the disaster of the campaign of Pruth, had been in some measure the instrument of his acquiring that glory. ”

“ Surrounded by Scotch barkeepers, Dutch traders, Swiss apothecaries, Italian barbers, French dancing teachers and German school-masters, the young prince obtained a first but rather extraordinary impression of that far-away and mysterious Europe where things were done differently.
When he was seventeen years old, he suddenly pushed Sister Sophia from the throne. Peter himself became the ruler of Russia. He was not contented with being the Tsar of a semi-barbarous and half-Asiatic people. He must be the sovereign head of a civilised nation. ”

“ The trouble with the Alexanders and the Charlemagnes and the Peters is that the span of human life is too short for their magnificent designs, which fall, while incomplete, into incompetent or vicious hands, and the work is overthrown. Peter's rest in his mausoleum at Sts. Peter and Paul must have been uneasy if he saw the reigns immediately succeeding his own. Not one man capable of a lofty patriotism like his, not one man working with unselfish energy for Russia ”

“ Peter the Great could not have done what he did in bringing his country into the ranks of modern States if he had not had an autocratic form of government. He realized fully the influence of the army in establishing him firmly in the new absolutism, and in 1716, in his military statutes, he declared: “His Majesty is sovereign and autocrat. He is accountable to no one in the world.”
From the time of Ivan the Terrible it was autocracy which, more than anything else, contributed to the long history of territorial extensions of Russia and her prestige, such as it was, abroad. ”

“ Everything is colossal like the empire. The informing genius of the male gender is Peter the Great, and of the other gender Catherine II. If these sovereigns were insane, and they were very peculiar for Russia, more insanity is desirable among the princes of the earth. Peter opened this city, as he said, for a window for Russia to look out of into civilized Europe. Peter was a useful emperor for Russia and his time, although he did many diabolical things. ”

“ Neither the Roman empire, nor that of Alexander, contained more than five hundred and fifty thousand each; and there is not a kingdom in Europe the twelfth part so extensive as the Roman empire; but to make Russia as populous, as plentiful, and as well stored with towns as our southern countries, would require whole ages, and a race of monarchs such as Peter the Great. ”

“ In the meantime, Peter was desirous to make a second tour through Europe. He had undertaken his first, as a person who travelled for instruction in the arts and sciences: but this second he made as a prince, who wanted to dive into the secrets of the several courts. He took the czarina [Pg 263] with him to Copenhagen, Lubec, Schwerin, and Nystadt. He had an interview with the king of Prussia at the little town of Aversburg, from thence he and the empress went to Hamburg, and to Altena, which had been burned by the Swedes, and which they caused to be rebuilt. ”

“ It is the spirit which sustains the martyr. It constitutes the distinguishing element of enthusiasm and exalted heroism.
But Peter not only made new military preparations, but prosecuted his schemes of internal improvement, and projected, after his unfortunate defeat at Narva, the union, by a canal, of the Baltic and Caspian Seas. About this time, he introduced into Russia flocks of Saxony sheep, erected linen and paper manufactories, built hospitals, and invited skilful mechanics, of all trades, to settle in his kingdom. ”

“ When the last patriarch was dying he expressed the wish that all men of other faith—Catholic, Protestant, and Mahomedan— should be burnt, and their places of worship levelled with the ground.
Peter's schemes of change were so tremendous that most Russians recoiled and wished them no success. His own family opposed him, and became a centre of plotting opposition. He repudiated his wife, and sent her to the seclusion of a convent. His second empress was a peasant woman, whose name was Martha, but was called, in Russia, Catharine. ”